All ten commissioners believe, however, that it is critical to educate the public on the issue of terrorism and what can be done to make the country safer. They would like to do so by reaching out, in bipartisan pairs, to communities around the country, encouraging a national conversation on these critical issues. In the absence of such an effort, they are concerned that there will be insufficient public examination of how the lessons learned from the terrorist attacks can be used to shape public policy. The perils of inaction are far too high - and the strategic value of the Commission's findings too important - for the work of 9-11 Commission not to continue,

The officials said the 10 commissioners, acting through a private group they founded last summer, will present a letter within days to Andrew H. Card Jr., President Bush's chief of staff, asking the White House to allow the group to gather detailed information from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies about the government's recent performance in dealing with terrorist threats. Commissioners say they want the information to prepare for a series of public hearings scheduled to begin here on Monday and to draft a privately financed report that will evaluate the government's counterterrorism policies in the wake of the commission's final report last July. The moves, which may not be welcome at the White House or among Congressional leaders, represent an unusual effort by members of a high-profile federal commission to retain their political viability and to lobby for their recommendations long after their official investigation came to an end. "We're going to ask a lot of questions," said Thomas H. Kean, who was chairman of the Sept. 11 commission and is now a board member of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, a private educational and lobbying group. "There are a lot of our recommendations that have not been implemented." Mr. Kean said that with terrorist groups threatening new attacks on American soil, "we don't have a lot of time left to act."

Bill Would Give CIA More Power Overseas. The CIA would be given authority to coordinate all human intelligence activities overseas, including those carried out by Pentagon and FBI personnel, under legislation proposed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill, Washington Post.

Films Capture Iraq's Brutal Truth. Vivid documentaries like The Dreams of Sparrows challenge U.S. media portrayals of the Iraq war -- and spark an unusual indie revolution, Wired News.